Washington girls walk off in protest over male cross-country athlete; parents reveal how it came to this
Holly Burns and her teammates left the Washington cross-country meet rather than compete against an athlete who had been separated from the boys' team.
Washington parents talk about massive protest by male athletes in girls cross country
Washington state parents Kevin and Sara Burns watched as their daughter Holly Burns joined a massive protest of female athletes pulling out of a cross country race in response to a male competitor.
Holly Burns and about a dozen other girls walked away from a cross country race in Washington on Tuesday.
They refused to compete against a male athlete who started the season on the boys' team.
When the race started, half of the female participants and male athletes ran.
Burns and the other half of the girls slowly made their way past the starting line and then into the nearby tree line, sacrificing one of their high school races.
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Since then, footage of the protest has gone viral across social media, raising awareness of one of the trans athletes currently involved in Washington state.
For Burns, a runner at Camas High School, the decision to protest was reinforced by strength in numbers. Her parents, Kevin and Sarah Burns, told OutKick that their daughter initially wanted to avoid "making waves."
"He wanted to kind of play it safe, so we weren't going to push it. We just let him feel it. We told him that. We supported him in whatever decision he wanted to make," Quines said.
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The girls shared their concerns. They decided to act together. And his parents supported him.
"The more I heard about his friends wanting to do something, the more I heard about his team wanting to do something, we definitely supported it," Quinn said.
We told him, do what you think is best."
On October 13, Camas faced the battlefield. Camas hosted the event on the grounds of Underwriters Labs, where the girls race was scheduled for 4 p.m.
Bronzes said they only recently learned of the athlete's transfer to the girls' competition. They were worried about what this would mean for their daughter and her teammates.
"You hear about it, but you never think it's on your kid's junior cross country team," Sarah said.
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A Camas cross country runner, who switched from the boys' team to the girls' team midway through the season, stands at the starting line of the girls' race at the Nike Hole in the Wall XC Invitational. (Out Kick)
The Camas school district said it follows Washington law and Washington Interscholastic Activities Association eligibility rules.
For the Bronzes, the policy leaves their daughter's concerns unresolved.
"I don't know how good it is to discriminate against my daughter and anyone else's daughter who wants to compete fairly," Quinn said.
Their own protest started before the girls walked off
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Parents said they arrived with symptoms and challenged their safety.
"They said we're not allowed to put up signs at the event today," Kevin Burns said. "I asked them if it was constitutional, if we could express ourselves just by holding a sign. And we kind of went back and forth about public versus private property. And in the end, they didn't seem to really understand what they could tell us to do or not.
"So I just went ahead and held up my sign and they had some security guys chasing me and harassing me and telling me I had to go. And I just said, no, I'm not going."
Other parents approached, they said. Some offered support. Others said they agreed, but were afraid of the backlash that might follow from speaking out publicly.
At one point, Sarah said she ran into a woman who identified herself as a psychiatric nurse.
"I had a lady come up to me and say she's a psychiatric nurse and I'm a disgusting person for holding this sign and I'm hurting these kids," Sarah says. "I told him that one day I would have to stand before my Lord and Savior and I would feel good about it."
Bronzes said they respect the girls competing on Tuesday. They believed some wanted to preserve their chances of competing in the postseason.
"I think they all have to make up their own minds," they said.
For Holly, they still don't know what sitting out will mean.
"Well, we don't know that yet," they said when asked if the protest cost him a chance at the cause he's been working for.
They said, “But when you stand up for what you believe is right, everything costs money.
His goal this season was just to have fun and compete and do the best he could.
Now his parents hope he can pursue those goals while standing by his teammates.
More races left. Camas lists its next championship meet for Oct. 21 at Louisville Regional Park.
Another decision awaits Washington voters on November 3.
Initiative 638 prohibits students who are biologically defined as boys from participating in all-girls interscholastic sports. This requires that students seeking to participate in those competitions provide biological gender verification from a health care provider.